All Memory is Prelude: Part I
I-American Historical Memory, Essays from ‘Monuments’ Project
(Researched and written 2016-2019)
"History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations. And it is with great pain and terror that one begins to realize this. In great pain and terror one begins to assess the history which has placed on where one is, and formed one's point of view. In great pain and terror because, thereafter, one enters into battle with that historical creation, Oneself, and attempts to re-create oneself according to a principle more humane and more liberating: one begins the attempt to achieve a level of personal maturity and freedom which robs history of its tyrannical power, and also changes history."
- James Baldwin
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
- William Faulkner
i- American Historical Memory
As Americans, we suffer from various schisms of historical memory, rooted in longstanding fissures within our society. As a result of these acute divisions of historical understanding, our nation has been a ship cursed with dragging an anchor of our unsettled past.
History is not simple, nor is it something that can ever be universally agreed upon. Truths and falsehoods exist in most of our common historical narratives and they persist on each side of most historically contentious divides. That said, all historical narratives are not created equal.
To different degrees, most Americans have developed their historical awareness out of lore rather than nuanced facts. Quite understandably, our population is not comprised of three hundred million disciplined historians. Even if that were the case, historians are not insusceptible to the power of societal influence and social memory, no one “meets history from a neutral position.”[1]
Our various understandings of the past tend to be an amalgamation of inputs— the recounting of one's family history, embellished Hollywood stories, regional historic observances, what era and where one attended school and the memory of one's own lived history.
These are the kind of historical narratives that help shape a culture’s collective memory, in which all of us relate, as well as contribute to.[2][3] A historical awareness developed from these sources does not necessarily make that understanding of history untrue. Often individual and group memory is an important aspect of rebuking or painting a more accurate picture of an institutional memory.[4] Though it does hold the power to contend fraudulent history, the strength of collective memory is not recounting an accurate portrayal of history. For better or for worse, the power of social memory is in building and reinforcing cultural identity and values, commonly by utilizing legends of history.[5]
In the mix of this blend of influences on our historical understanding, though, there are some narratives that have been injected with the intent of inaccurately revising history. This redirecting of historical perspective aims to instill a particular viewpoint on past events.
Though a major tactic of historical revision is frequently the pure fabrication of "facts," it often is more subtle. Sometimes the form it takes is omitting facets of history from a narrative or reducing certain aspects' significance to mere footnotes. Another common method of historical revision is the infusion of true historical sequence with reworked motivations, catalysts or resulting effects of those events. Maybe the most insidious is the intentional forgetting of historical events and the people involved altogether.[6] Over time, these methods of muddying the waters of the past have a profound effect on our common understanding of historic events; historical fact, lore, and falsehoods become one and the same in collective memory.
False historical narratives are obviously not unique to our country. They have been utilized as a tool, or weapon, since the dawn of civilization by those who wish to pursue and retain political power and economic dominance. They have been used to legitimize monarchs and authoritarian rulers throughout history, as they continue to do so in countries across the globe today.
It is in this power of historical narrative where the vital importance of truth and historical accuracy, as well as the ability to challenge what is false, gravely presents itself. Many of our constitutional liberties were galvanized with the intention of having a check on such power. But they have most certainly not made us immune to the malicious intent of historical revisionism.
American history is messy and with a little digging, things often start to appear quite ugly when looking beyond lore. But ignoring the negative or disgraceful parts of our past does not absolve them or allow our country to effectively move forward from those events. They instead become curses of the present, thorns in the side of our society.
To be honest with our nation's history is to have the courage to look at our past with both pride and remorse. An honest and critical approach to our history can work toward mending our severed collective memory, despite the inevitable hostilities which arise during this arduous process.[7]
In striving toward historical truth, we need to look at our own beliefs, examine their truthfulness and accept that our understanding of the past may be different from the way things may have verifiably taken place.
Historical rhetoric is powerful. It can often act as a shield in the face of divergent truth, smoothing out or hiding imperfect edges that may not line up with one's own historical narrative. It seems to be as human as breathing to stubbornly refuse to accept facts that conflict with one's beliefs. This is especially so when there is emotional attachment or cultural identity tied to those convictions or if they have been held as truths for most of one’s life.
As humans, we have a great ability to distort and reshape any reason or logic in order to support our beliefs, often without even noticing the lack of sense we have made. Americans may very well exemplify this human trait.
As it is said, reality is very much a historical process. The way in which one interprets the present or forms an outlook of the future is very much linked to the way in which one understands the past. This interplay shapes one's historical consciousness and imposes itself on the way one interacts with the world around them.[8]
This is the means by which the dire consequences of malicious rhetoric and false historical narratives come into existence. Conceptual historical arguments can, and do, manifest into contemporary developments, at times, in the painfully real and tragic events of our present.
Next in series:
All Memory is Prelude: Part II- The Road from Charleston to Charlottesville
Notes
1) Robert Thorp, The Concept of Historical Consciousness as an Interpretive Frame for Historical Media, Paper presented at the 7th annual conference of the Swedish national network for history didactical research, Linköping, Sweden, April 23-24 2013, pg 192
2) Paul Ricoeur, from “Memory-History-Forgetting”, The Collective Memory Reader, Edited By Jeffrey Olick, Vefred Vinitzky-Seroussi, Danial Levy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011, 476
3) Jiri Subrt, Alemayehu Kumsa and Massimiliano Ruzzeddu, Explaining Social Processes: Perspectives from Current Social Theory and Historical Sociology, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham Switzerland, 2020, 61
4) Paul Ricoeur, from “Memory-History-Forgetting”, The Collective Memory Reader, Edited By Jeffrey K Olick, Vefred Vinitzky-Seroussi, Danial Levy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011, 480
5) Jiri Subrt, Alemayehu Kumsa and Massimiliano Ruzzeddu, Explaining Social Processes: Perspectives from Current Social Theory and Historical Sociology, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham Switzerland, 2020, 63
6) Paul Ricoeur, from “Memory-History-Forgetting”, The Collective Memory Reader, Edited By Jeffrey K Olick, Vefred Vinitzky-Seroussi, Danial Levy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011, 480
7) Paul Ricoeur, from “Memory-History-Forgetting”, The Collective Memory Reader, Edited By Jeffrey K Olick, Vefred Vinitzky-Seroussi, Danial Levy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011, 478
8) Jiri Subrt, Alemayehu Kumsa and Massimiliano Ruzzeddu, Explaining Social Processes: Perspectives from Current Social Theory and Historical Sociology, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham Switzerland, 2020, 71